The Fed Returns To Basel

Roger Federer finds himself back in his homeland this week as he competes in the Masters 500 event in Basel. 37-year-old world number 3, Federer will take on Filip Krajinovic of Serbia at 6.00pm British time today as he looks to defend the title he won last year. Federer has won the title in Switzerland a record 8 times but will have to fight off competition from young guns, number 2 seed Alexander Zverev, and number 4 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas if he is to make it 9.

Roger Federer by Tatiana is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Federer will first have to work his way through number 35 ranked Krajinovic in a rematch of their last 32 match in Indian Wells this year, a game Federer comfortably won 6-2 6-1. If results go by the seeds, Federer would face Jack Sock of America in the quarterfinals before an exciting match up against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semifinals.

Fresh from victory in Stockholm last week, world number 16 Tsitsipas will take on France’s Jeremy Chardy in the first round tomorrow afternoon. The Greek will want to carry over the form he showed in Stockholm against a man who has beaten him on 2 of their 3 previous meetings.

It will be a good test of Tsitsipas’ fitness and mental strength to see how he follows up on his victory in Stockholm, it’s easy to follow up such a high with a below-par performance, so Tsitsipas will be eager to prove he can put two good tournaments together back to back.

In the bottom half, Alexander Zverev will be hoping to put his 6-2 6-1 loss to Novak Djokovic in the Shanghai Masters behind him. World number 5, Zverev was taken to pieces by the Serb, but in reality, there aren’t many people who would do much better against Djokovic in his current form.

Zverev starts off with a game against Robin Hasse of the Netherlands, and the pair have played 4 times in the past, with each man winning 2. Hasse won their only meeting this year with a 5-7 6-4 7-5 win in Ohio, and he will be looking to repeat the upset here in Basel.

Other big names on show in Basel include Marin Cilic, the Croatian world number 6 has been fairly out of form since the US Open, losing his last three matches before his first round match against Denis Shapovalov, but he made it through relatively comfortably, 6-4 6-2 to set up a meeting with Marius Copil of Romania.

Beaten finalist from Stockholm, Ernest Gulbis is also in the draw as he looks to reinvigorate his career. The talented Latvian will take on Jack Sock in the first round in a rematch of their quarterfinal match in Stockholm which Gulbis won 4-6 6-3 6-4.

As always, there’s plenty of tennis to keep an eye on this week, and the Kollectaball team will try to keep you up to date with all the goings on! We are particularly excited about the potential of a Federer vs Tsitsipas semi-final in Basel, but there’s plenty of top-notch tennis to be played before then!

If you’re still catching up with last week’s tennis then check out our report on what happened on the ATP tour last week.